Born Weird (16 page)

“Where’d he go?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know!”

“The turnoff,” Lucy shouted, pointing. “The turnoff!”

Angie steered sharply to the right. She tried to slow down. As she hit the off-ramp at 90 km/h, the van began to tilt. Angie braked. They came to a sudden stop. Their bodies were thrown forwards and then jarred back. This woke everyone up.

No one said anything. Beside them was a stop sign. On top of it was a flashing red light. The inside of the van glowed red. Then it didn’t. And then it did again.

“There it is,” Abba said and she pointed to the right. A single red tail light sped away. They watched it until they
couldn’t see it. In the passenger seat Paul turned and looked at Angie. His face was red and then it wasn’t and then it was again.

“Are you okay?” Paul asked.

“Where are we?” Richard asked.

“What the
fuck
is going on?”

“We’re chasing ghosts,” Lucy said. Abba and Angie could only nod their heads in agreement.

A
T
4:30
P.M., THE AFTERNOON AFTER
they’d chased the Maserati, having finally crossed the Ontario/Manitoba border and started over the Prairies, the sun was neither golden nor setting as Lucy pulled in front of the Golden Sunsets Retirement Community. From the middle bench Angie looked in the rear-view mirror. Lucy was already looking at her.

“I don’t think we have time for this,” Angie said, quietly.

“It’s about time. It’s About Time,” Lucy answered. She did not look away until Angie did. The driver’s door opened. Then it slammed closed, waking everybody else up.

“Where are we?” Kent asked. “Why did we stop?”

“I believe,” Richard said, looking out the window and recognizing the building from the brochure, “we’re at Winnipeg’s fourth best retirement community.”

They all got out of the van. When Paul did too, Angie stopped him. “Please stay here?” she asked.

“What? No. I want to meet your mother.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do!”

“I don’t want you to,” she said. She saw that this hurt him. “Please?”

“Why?”

Angie looked over her shoulder. Her siblings were already inside. She didn’t have enough time to make something up so she told him the truth. “I don’t want you to start thinking that I’ll turn into my mother. Especially now that I’m just about to become one.”

“Don’t worry about that. I won’t.”

“I’m not worried about you,” she said. “I’m worried that I’ll start worrying that you’ll start worrying.”

Paul worked through her syntax. Then he nodded. This made her love him just a little bit more. She did not say this to him.

“But soon, you know,” Paul said. “She’ll have to meet the baby.”

“I promise,” Angie said. She held her stomach and ran across the parking lot. They’d waited for her just inside the front door. Lucy led them past the grandfather clock and down the yellow hallway. They stood very close together in the elevator. Then the doors opened, revealing the handmade cardboard sign.

“Holy
fuck
.”

“I’d go in but I’ve just had mine done,” Angie said.

“Everybody goes in,” Lucy said.

“I’m not going.”

“Everybody goes in.”

“You can’t make us.”

“She
fucking
doesn’t even know who we are!”

“She’s right,” Richard said, “we’re all going in.” He stepped to the door of the janitor’s closet and paused only briefly before he went inside.

“Do you have an appointment?” Richard heard his mother ask. His eyes were still adjusting to the dark.

“Can you fit me in?” he asked.

“Sure. It’s Monday. It’s slow,” she said. It was Wednesday but Richard didn’t correct her. As his pupils grew bigger the image of his mother developed in front of him, like a print. She had aged better than he had. She moved a chair in front of the sink and Richard sat down in it. The water was warm and she washed his hair.

“A couple of grey hairs in here,” she said.

“At least.”

“Are you a family man?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You seem like a family man. But there’s no ring.”

“I’m recently divorced,” Richard said. His ring was in the front pocket of his pants. He rubbed his thumb against his finger in the space where it used to be.

“That’s too bad.”

“It’s for the best.”

“That’s what your generation says. Maybe it’s true. Maybe
it is for the best. Or maybe you didn’t love her enough,” Nicola said. She shut off the taps. She stood him up and moved the chair in front of the mirror. The peach beach towel was tied around his neck. She picked up her scissors and began cutting his hair.

“You’re not going to ask me how I want it cut?”

“Are you sad?” Nicola asked. Richard turned in the chair. The scissors became motionless.

“Yes. I am sad. I’m sad most of the time.”

“Does it bother you?”

“It never used to. But now it does. Very much.”

“It’s because the world disappoints you,” Nicola said. She set down her scissors. She took a pair of electric clippers off the shelf. “It continually fails to surprise you. It fails to be as wonderful as you long for it to be. This is where your sadness comes from.”

Nicola increased the setting on the shaver and turned it on. The electric hum was loud in the small room. She ran it over every inch of Richard’s head. Then she turned it off. The beach towel was removed. Pieces of his hair drifted in the air around his head.

“Go ahead, look!” Nicola said.

Richard looked at his reflection. He didn’t look like himself. He laughed. The skin around his eyes wrinkled into lines. These lines were deep and he had not seen them in quite some time.

“I thought you’d be open to a change,” Nicola said.

“You were right,” Richard said. He ran his hand over his shiny bald skull. He stood up. Clumps of hair fell from his clothes. “What do I owe you?” he asked.

“Oh, I do this for love.”

“Can I hug you?”

“I don’t see why not,” Nicola said. She opened her arms and Richard held her tightly.

“Do you have an appointment?” Nicola asked Lucy.

“Yes. It’s for now.”

Nicola nodded. Lucy sat herself in the chair in front of the sink. Her mother washed her hair.

“Do you know the gentleman who was here before you?”

“Yes, I do. Quite well, in fact.”

“There are many of these men in your life?”

“Oh no, it’s not like that. He’s my brother.”

“I see,” Nicola said. She rinsed out the shampoo. Lucy stood. Nicola moved the chair and tied the beach towel around her neck. She picked up her scissors but she did not begin to cut. “But there are others, no? Men, not your brothers?”

“Yes. There are.”

“That you love?”

“No. Not like that. Not like you and Dad.”

“Have you ever asked yourself what you’re trying to give them?”

“I’ve never even thought about it like that.”

“Because if you’re trying to lose yourself, something I can’t help but recommend, there are much better ways.”

“But few as pleasurable.”

“Well, that’s true,” Nicola said. They both smiled. Neither noticed that they did this in exactly the same way. “Are these affairs an attempt to figure out who you are?”

“Maybe …”

“And you think that everyone else already knows this? That they know who they are?”

“I do.”

“You see, there, that’s your mistake,” Nicola said. She cut away Lucy’s bangs. She cut several long lengths from the back. “As far as I can tell, you remain a mystery to yourself until the day you die.”

Lucy bit her bottom lip. Nicola lifted her scissors. She set them back down. She picked up the clippers and then she turned them on.

It is perhaps unfair to attribute Abba’s anger solely to a fear of losing her long red hair. She stormed into the janitor’s closet with her hands in fists. “Enough, Mother,” Abba said. “Enough!”

“It’s been a busy morning. But I’m sure I can fit you in.”

“Stop it! Mother?”

“You have gorgeous hair.”

“Just come back to us.”

“It’s so long.”

“This could be the last chance.”

“It’s most unusual. This length. Don’t you think?”

“I need you. We all do.”

“Maybe it’s just for beauty,” Nicola said. She reached out her hand and ran it through Abba’s hair. “But maybe not? Let’s just give it a wash?”

Abba’s fingers uncurled. She sat down in the chair in front of the sink. The smell of the goat’s milk shampoo and the warmth of the water made her feel safe. This feeling remained as she sat in front of the mirror. Nicola tied the towel around her neck. Then she handed her the scissors.

“Maybe you want to make the first cut?” Nicola asked.

Abba looked at the scissors. She looked at them for quite some time. Then she pulled out a length of her hair, put the scissors quite close to her scalp and she cut. Abba kept this lock of hair in her hand as she passed the scissors back to her mother. She was still holding it when Nicola turned off the clippers.

Angie, her hair wet, sat in front of the mirror. The beach towel was already tied around her neck. Nicola put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. She pressed down, hard. Through the mirror Nicola looked into Angie’s eyes. “You know, you’re very strong,” Nicola said.

“Thank you.”

“That’s no compliment. It’s your weakness. If you weren’t so strong you wouldn’t have to take it and so you wouldn’t,”
she said. Then she lifted her hands and took up her scissors and she began to cut. Angie looked down. She thought about what her mother had just said. She was still preoccupied with these thoughts when she realized that the annoying buzz was the sound of an electric shaver.

“No! Wait!” she called. But Nicola had already started, so Angie just let her finish.

Kent entered the room quickly, shut the door with force and stepped towards his mother.

“Where are they?”

“Where are what?”

“The clippers. Where the
fuck
are the clippers?”

Nicola extended her index finger. She pointed to the shelf. She kept the rest of her body perfectly still. Kent crossed the room, picked up the clippers and turned them to the highest setting. With great speed and little delicacy he shaved his head. Hair fell in clumps. He turned the electric shaver off and put it back where he found it. He ran his hand over his head. It felt smooth and clean. Then it felt wet and sticky. Kent looked in the mirror and saw tiny trickles of blood flowing from several cuts over both sides of his scalp.

“Sit down,” Kent heard his mother say.

Kent shook his head no.

“Let yourself be helped!” Nicola said, loudly. She pointed to the chair and Kent sat down in it. He gasped and squirmed as his mother applied alcohol and bandages to his
head. But he did not verbally protest and he did not try to get out of the chair.

No one spoke as they gathered in the elevator. They rode up to the main floor. They walked through the gloomy halls. None of them returned the stares of the residents. They didn’t even look at each other as they climbed back into the van.

Without anyone actually saying anything, Paul was volunteered to drive. Angie sat in the passenger seat. She let an hour’s worth of prairie flatness go by before she angled the rear-view mirror. She looked at them. They all stared at the floor, occasionally running their hands over their heads. Without hair their physical similarities were frighteningly obvious; the broad noses, the high foreheads, the wrinkles at the corners of their eyes. They were, undeniably, her family and they were all together and for the first time since Grandmother Weird had written a phone number on her forearm, she felt that things were going to be okay.

T
HE NEXT TIME
A
NGIE
woke up, the dashboard clock said 8:20. Her heart fell a little bit when she saw the tiny
p.m
. She looked at Paul, who reached over, lowered her visor and tapped the mirror. In it she saw her brothers in the middle row. They sat as far apart as the bench permitted. Richard started to say something. His body language indicated it was of vital importance. Then he stopped himself from saying it. And then Kent did exactly the same thing. In the two minutes Angie watched, they repeated this cycle six times.